Favorite Fotos: River Thames

One of the most wonderful things about London is, without doubt, its fabulous river. The reason the area was urbanized in the first place, by the clever Romans, it figures prominently in any history of the city, and continues to play an important part in the life of the place today. Working docks have largely been replaced by swanky condos, at least upstream of Tower Bridge, but its lovely embankments remain largely free social gathering places for Londoners and tourists.

Here is a shot taken from the bench on the Victoria Embankment where I ate my lunch on a crisp December day. Note the position of the sun. This photo was taken at straight-up noon—this is as high as the sun got that day!


The picture at the top of the blog was taken looking far upstream from Battersea Bridge, toward the less-developed banks of the Thames. But the area most familiar to visitors and readers of London-based stories would look more like this view, taken from the south side of Vauxhall Bridge and looking downstream toward such landmarks as the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye (this was one of my last views of the river, taken on my last outing).


By contrast, it was early in my visit that we got to experience the Mayor's Thames Festival, which included a boat race (started much further upstream). By the time the hundreds of boats reached our viewing spot on the Jubilee Bridge, the oarsmen and -women were probably pretty beat. But they still put on quite a show. Here's a shot (below) of a group headed downstream toward Waterloo Bridge, then on to St. Paul's and the Tower. I wish Henry's Saturday Paddlers could have participated! But it looks like part of the U.S. was represented, at least in [dubiously p.c.] spirit, as you can see on the left.


The reason I characterized the Roman founders of Londinium as clever before is that they realized the practical advantages of a tidal river. The Thames actually experiences tides of up to 7 meters, according to the guide on our tourist boat to Greenwich. And I can personally attest that the tides changes are quite extreme. One of the noticeably lowest tides I witnessed happened when I took one of my longest riverside strolls, from Hammersmith all the way to the Tate Britain. (I was scoping out how to get to Craven Cottage for the football game I'd be attending with my class a few weeks later.) On the right you can see a glimpse of the other bank of the river, as seen from Bishop's Park, near the stadium.

You might be able to see a bit of the exposed shoreline in the picture above, but here's a better view of it:


And here's an even more striking image, the piers of Chelsea Bridge looking high and dry:


Lots of people live and work along the river, from folks in the new luxury buildings like those here, near St. Paul's...


... to those in much more intimate contact with it!


Being as close to the mouth of the river as London is, there are of course many more waterways in the area that feed into the Thames. Here is a canal a ways downstream, glimpsed from the window of a Docklands Light Rail car on our way home from Greenwich:


And here's another, further upstream, which descends to the Thames level through locks like this one in Camden (giving its name to the famous Camden Lock Market that Steve and I visited on a rainy day):


Of course, the river provides extra picturesque interest for some of the city's most famous and beautiful landmarks, as well some not so well known but equally photogenic. At the left is one of the many shots taken of the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben tower, right on the riverside at the Westminster Bridge.

The shot below is of Lambeth Palace, just another 13th century structure of note along the Thames, this one being the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. (One effect of my historical sight-seeing in Europe will be to make me very blase about any historical structures in the U.S.—they're just not old enough to cause comment!)


St. Paul's is of course an enduring symbol of London, and here's a shot of it which emphasizes its nearness to the river, as well as the amazing amount of construction activity in the area. The bridge in the photo is the "wobbly" Millennium footbridge.


A long way from the days when the river was London's sewer, today it's a clean, if silty, body of water that is teeming with birdlife (which means there must be lots of fish in there) as well as boat traffic of the recreational, commercial and commuter varieties. As the sign on this barge that I saw near Greenwich attests, it takes hard work to maintain the river, but Londoners are proud to do it.


Tomorrow I'll take a closer look at some of those bridges over the river which lent their name to the blog.